s-asia-it@Mar 17, 2009

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:04:51 +0500
From: Fouad Bajwa
Subject: [s-asia-it] For a better Deal - Deal Makers Anyone?
To: Pakistan ICT Policy group ,
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For a better Deal - Deal Makers Anyone?
Creating Pakistan's Mix - Deal Makers: Will they take our society,
economy and progress to a new level?

(Fouad Bajwa, Independent Discussion/17-03-2009) "Are you a Deal
Maker?" asks someone named Walmer. "A Deal Maker? What's that supposed
to mean?" is my reply. "You know, a social innovator striving to bring
his country out of a social-economic deadlock in these difficult
times?", I stare at my screen trying to make sense of what this guy is
asking me during a Video Chat online. "There are a bunch of you guys
that can act as the perfect mix to make that happen", he continues as
a response to my silence, "You seem to carry the required magic, the
perfect group of mavericks to manoeuvre and help others manoeuvre
through, don't be sad at this moment in time, be the ingredient of
your region's change! You don't need any financial or strategic
support, you just need to group up with the right likeminded Deal
Makers and progress forward!?

He leaves me thinking, I was pitching an idea based around social
innovation for youth and mid career professionals amidst a technology
setting and seeking possible support but this guy after many online
conference calls leaves me to think about something that I've never
thought of. To date, I have gone about the country and to over 12
abroad, advising, sharing, discussing and giving out ideas and working
with people to make their plans transform into something doable but
never thought of actually turning the tables around. Those friendships
are one side of the case and I have friends across this country that
can make wonderful things happen in terms of progress and growth for
their organizations as well as the region, but we never got together
to pitch our deals, we are blinded by selfish needs, despite that, we
can still make the deal for innovation while achieving social and
economic growth! Yes, be the Deal Makers for Change.

It's supposed to be a mix of Intellect applied to innovate and then
create a deal with human development and fair business networks. Be
the maverick of change and growth. How? has always been the question
for me I guess and I don't know why I have stuck to that. My thought's
deadlock was recently broken and it was changed due to something that
struck the outside world from our inside world. Only moments after the
discussion in question ends, someone sends me a link showing this
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/03/15/world/20090316-PSTAN_7.html.
Just two days ago, they saw kids battered on the street as part of a
crackdown in Pakistan. Is this battered kid even eligible to vote? Has
he reached that age yet? But what?s the deal for getting beaten up?
Definitely, it?s not a case of sheer public entertainment? No, not at
all! It was the deal being made. This is a recent picture that the
world grasped from our region. We took the beating! We broke the old
deal and pitched a better one! I know it must have hurt pretty bad, I
got it once and boy does it hurt but its always been for the good.

Everyone seems to be at it today, where they group, they pitch, where
they standalone, they suffer. Where they are vocal, they break
barriers and have the other side lend them their attention. The Deal
Makers, they are the magic, the mavericks, an ingredient of the mix
for change. They have shown what it takes to make the new deal, to
understand its importance, to value what we have and to struggle for
what is needed . Its not about social and economic change, its about
making the right case for change whatever the context may be. They
were out there taking the beating, others were sitting behind the tube
enjoying a battle of the odds but each heart pounded skipping a beat
to be engulfed by the emerging change.

Some of us took a beating too but we weren't on television for that
matter. I was stuck in Malaysia when the Bangkok Airport was locked
down by the opposition but some people back home were struggling for a
policy makeover with reference to technology and innovation. What were
their concerns? Simple, they were striking a deal for a fair public
policy framework that brought 67% of the 'outsiders' in to context
with the '33%' insiders. The larger figure wasn't witnessing what was
happening two days ago and the smaller figure was behind the tube in
true shock. Anyway, I was getting phone calls from 'Deal Makers'
complaining the ongoing trouble of getting the powerful to listen to
the poor and to create the right balance of fair play and social
equity in national progress. They said, they were missing their
beloved Deal Maker to make the fair move.

So what is the deal going to be for me now? What will I pitch next or
should it be us as a group that makes the pitch? I know this
discussion seems awfully crazy but I am pretty much sane and not naive
to say, I have a better deal to pitch in my area of Technology and
Innovation for positive social and economic change. My problem I guess
is that you who have are also deal makers in the similar sense just
don't want to get together, a feature of our people discussed all over
the world that we are good at tugging each other?s legs but when it
comes to common positive change or causes for improvement, we are good
at pulling.....but not good at making a collective to pitch the deal
that affects us all.

I plan to wear shorts this time and summer while offer other Deal
Makers to join in, placing the tugging part aside, we may be able
pitch the right deal for the right amount of change. Don?t mind my
optimism, its about time!

--

Regards.
--------------------------
Fouad Bajwa
@skBajwa


パキスタンが政局で揺れています。
#更に国家破産の危機も。
こういう技術系のメーリングリストでも熱く思いのたけを語る人も出てきます。
日本にはこういう流れはないかな。